


Ain't the End of the Line

by fictionalcandie



Series: Everything is Fluff and Nothing Hurts [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Casual Mutiny, Gen, Humor, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-21 23:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11367423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcandie/pseuds/fictionalcandie
Summary: “Stop the train,” Rogers demanded.Gabe didn’t move. He looked past Rogers, but nope, not there either. “Where’s Barnes?” he asked.“I saidstop the train,” said Rogers.





	Ain't the End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was doing a CA:tFA rewatch a few days ago, and it occurred to me that there was no way the Steve Rogers we see in the rest of the film would have just left Bucky Barnes (no matter how dead) at the bottom of that mountain. The next thing I knew, this had happened. It turns out I have very little self-restraint.
> 
> Anyway. Happy Birthday, Cap.

Gabe had just finished tying Zola’s arms behind his back, when Rogers burst into the engine compartment like he was in a hell of a hurry. He had that crazy look in his eyes, the one that meant they’d be doing something really freaking dumb in a minute, like jumping onto a speeding train.

He was alone. That never led anywhere good.

“Stop the train,” Rogers demanded.

Gabe didn’t move. He looked past Rogers, but nope, not there either. “Where’s Barnes?” he asked.

“I said _stop the train_ ,” said Rogers.

Gabe took another glance behind Rogers. There wasn’t anything out in the train corridor but the two or three dead Hydra soldiers Gabe’d left there on his way in over the roof, shooting through the windows. Well, and those guys looked like they’d brought a half dozen more of their friends along to come be dead, too.

Still no Barnes there, though.

“Jones,” Rogers said, real dangerous-like.

Gabe stopped the train.

#

Phillips ground his teeth until a vein pulsed at his temple, and he had to stop. He glared at Lieutenant Warsh, and especially at the radio he was clutching.

“Try that one more time,” Phillips commanded, though he really didn’t want to hear it again. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to hear it the _first_ time.

Maybe he’d get lucky and it’d turn out his hearing was giving out, and Lieutenant Warsh’d say something else entirely.

Lieutenant Warsh’s throat bobbed. “The, uh, the Commandos brought Zola to the FOB, sir,” he said.

“The Commandos did,” Phillips repeated. Just to be clear.

“That’s right, sir.”

“Not Rogers.”

Lieutenant Warsh winced. “No, sir.”

Nope, not lucky.

Phillips felt that vein in his temple going again, and made his jaw relax. “Go on,” he told Lieutenant Warsh, because when you were at war sometimes you had to suffer.

The first time they’d been through it, Phillips had been stunned silent, so Lieutenant Warsh had got all the way to the end before Phillips said anything. That time, Lieutenant Warsh’d done it without so much as pausing to breathe.

“Once Zola was secure, the Commandos, they, uh.” Lieutenant Warsh stammered to a halt. He licked his lips. “They resupplied and headed back out.”

Last time, he’d been a lot more specific, right off the bat. Phillips remembered it very clearly. Too damn clearly. Which meant he knew the answer to the question he was about to ask even before he asked it. He was still hoping he’d misheard.

“What did they resupply with?”

Lieutenant Warsh, his attempt at dancing over it shot to hell, dropped his eyes. “Rappelling gear, sir.”

“Why did they want _rappelling gear_?” Phillips asked.

“So they could go after Captain Rogers, sir.”

“Did they say where Rogers is, Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant Warsh winced again. He nodded.

“And just where in hell _is_ Rogers?”

“Sir,” Lieutenant Warsh looked like he’d rather be anywhere else at the moment. Like maybe on the front lines. “Captain Rogers is climbing down the side of the Alps.”

That vein again. Phillips wasn’t even grinding his teeth this time.

“And _why_ is Rogers climbing down the side of the Alps?” he asked.

“Well, sir, because Sergeant Barnes, uh. Fell off the train.”

Phillips closed his eyes. He didn’t quite pray for patience, but he thought real hard at wherever Erskine had ended up about how this should’ve been _his_ barrel of monkeys to deal with, and it was awful of him to leave Phillips with it.

Hell, Phillips hadn’t even been able to keep a leash on that maniac when he’d been in _tights_ , there was just no hope now he had a combat uniform.

“Of course he did,” Phillips ground out, eyes still closed. “That just makes all kindsa sense, doesn’t it.”

That sound might’ve been Lieutenant Warsh whimpering. Phillips hadn’t seen him do it, so he could pretend it hadn’t happened. “S-sir?”

“So Barnes fell off a mountain, Rogers decided to go down after his body, and our crack assault squad decided to go after _him_ , is that about the size of it?”

“Uh, yes. Yes, sir.”

“Perfect.” Phillips groaned. “Get me Agent Carter.”

#

Falsworth had been lecturing them the whole way back out from the base and down the mountain. All about how they should be prepared for when they found the Captain—and Sarge’s body, because they all knew by the time they caught up with him he’d have found it—and how it wasn’t liable to be pretty.

Those’d been his exact words. “Not liable to be pretty,” all serious. Dum Dum hadn’t been real clear on whether it was Sarge’s corpse that wouldn’t be pretty, or the Captain himself.

Dum Dum had been careful not to ask for clarification, either. For one thing, he didn’t especially relish saying ’Sarge’s corpse’ out loud, in case the Captain heard him from way down the bottom of the mountain. He hadn’t yet used his shiny little shield on any of the Howlies, and Dum Dum didn’t want to be the first.

They found the impact site before Dum Dum got annoyed enough that he had to decide on a response.

There was a big ol’ pool of blood, already frozen into the snow. A few scraps of torn blue wool from Sarge’s coat. And, leading away down the valley, along the banks of the half-frozen river, big solid footprints, like the Captain’s when he carried a heavy load. There was a trail of blood drops running alongside the foot prints—calling ‘em drops was really an understatement. Big splashes, more like.

“Told you Rogers’d find him,” Gabe said, and Dum Dum had to grunt and roll his eyes. Yeah, he’d said it, all right, but it wasn’t like anybody’d _argued_ with him.

“Of course the Captain found him,” Jim muttered back, looking like it was taking real effort not to roll his eyes. It was a testament to how serious the situation was; Jim didn’t usually bother not rolling his eyes. “That’s what he came down here for, isn’t it?”

Dum Dum noticed neither of _them_ were stupid enough to use the phrase _Sarge’s corpse_ either. A bunch of smart fellas, the Howlies.

“It looks like he’s moved,” Falsworth said, because sometimes Falsworth liked to forgot that the rest of them could read trail sign, too. He was peering hard at the ground. “He’s probably looking to find shelter and hole up with Sarge’s body until we arrive as reinforcements.”

Okay, so _most_ of the Howlies were smart fellas.

Dernier spat something in French. Gabe winced, then started nodding frantically.

Falsworth looked up at them and scowled. “Calling it other than it is serves no purpose,” he said, really priggish. “Sarge is _dead_ , and we’ll be best served preparing for what that’s going to do to the Captain, once we find them. There’s no point pretending it hasn’t happened.”

Dum Dum did a nice, long, thorough visual check of the perimeter rather than meet Falsworth’s eyes or accidentally look at anybody else. The rest of the Howlies must’ve been doing the same thing, because it stayed real quiet for a while.

“Let’s get moving,” Jim said, eventually. There was a lot of mumbled agreements.

“Right,” said Falsworth, forgetting again, and stepping forward. “Follow me.”

They headed out without saying anything. Dum Dum was pretty grateful; those last few words from Falsworth were still ringing in his ears, he didn’t really want to hear any more.

The trail turned out of the valley and started winding up the side of the mountain at the first passable path. It wasn’t even really passable—nobody but the Captain would look at this and think ‘path’, but in the Captain’s mind it was probably ideal. They’d been struggling up it for maybe half an hour, when their pace all of a sudden slowed way down.

“Oh, bloody _hell_ ,” said Falsworth, up on point where he was following the tracks. He’d come to a complete stop, and was staring down at the ground.

Dum Dum looked down. After a second, he swore, too.

The tracks kept going, winding sideways up the mountain, but they were crossed by a bunch of tracks coming up from the other direction. The new ones were fresher, and Dum Dum’d guess there were at least five guys, maybe more. Way out here, odds were not good that they were friendly.

The new tracks followed the Captain’s trail, almost wiping it out. The most of it that could be seen were the splashes of blood, ground into the snow under all those boots, but still clear, still blood.

The Captain was going to have company, before they reached him.

“We’d better hustle,” Dum Dum heard his own voice saying, oddly flat.

He hoped like hell the Captain hadn’t gone crazy with grief, or anything, and didn’t let whoever was tracking him get the jump on him. Especially not while he had Sarge’s corpse with him—the Captain’d never forgive himself.

Not that it seemed likely. Hell, the Captain was carrying _Sarge’s corpse_ , he’d probably be _glad_ to meet somebody he could shoot.

Two hours after the trail was intercepted, they found the Captain.

Well, they found the eight mooks in Hydra uniforms first, laid out all bloody and dead. They were all within one or two yards of the cave mouth—Dum Dum and the Howlies almost didn’t even spot the cave, not until they stumbled past it and realized the trail had stopped.

The Hydra heavies were definitely dead, though, so Captain hadn’t gone crazy with grief, then. At least, not _too_ crazy. Not crazy enough to let Hydra sneak up on him.

The Howlies all stopped, without discussing it, and shared a few wary glances. The Captain was obviously in that cave, he had to have heard them coming—judging by the dead mooks, he probably knew who they were, since he let them get this close to the cave—but that didn’t really tell them what they’d be walking into.

 _Not liable to be pretty_ , indeed.

Falsworth must’ve been done playing the boss, because when Gabe stepped forward to go first into the cave, he didn’t say a word about it, just backed up and let him.

“Captain?” Gabe called, while he still had one foot outside the cave.

Bravery only took a fella so far, after all, when the Captain was on the other end of it. Especially when you knew what he could do; and the Howlies had all seen him in action.

“In here,” the Captain’s voice yelled back. It sounded wrong. 

Not wrong because it was, say, _distraught_ and _broken with grief_. No, wrong, because it _wasn’t_. Grim, sure, and damned determined besides. But not bent out of shape the way the Captain ought to be, holed up in a cave with Sarge’s body.

What in hell.

The Howlies traded some more looks.

“Get in here, already,” the Captain snapped, a little louder, less patient. “We need _help_.”

We.

“Le capitaine says ‘oui’?” asked Dernier, frowning.

 _We_.

“Out of my way,” Dum Dum said, and he shouldered right past the rest into the cave.

It went back about twenty feet, then made a turn sharp enough you couldn’t see around the corner. That’s where the Captain was, crouched between the turn and a small fire, Sarge’s rifle across his lap. There was blood on the rifle, more of it smeared over the left half of the Captain’s uniform undershirt starting at his shoulder. That wasn’t the really interesting thing, though.

“Took you long enough,” the Captain was saying, not even a touch less grim. “I expected you lazybones an hour ago.”

The _interesting_ thing was further back in the cave, lying by the fire. Left arm bundled up in the Captain’s uniform jacket and soaking through with blood; the Captain’s belt cinched tight way up by the shoulder above the bandage; the Captain’s shield braced over his chest, covering most of his torso. 

Dum Dum rocked back on his heels. He pushed up his bowler hat. “Well,” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

The Captain raised his eyebrows at Dum Dum. “What, don’t tell me the rest of the men were too scared to climb down a little hill,” he said. It was the Captain, so Dum Dum wasn’t sure if he was trying for humor or actually being serious.

Dum Dum laughed anyway.

“Get your asses in here,” he shouted back over his shoulder. His mouth wouldn’t stop grinning. “Captain still ain’t pretty, and Sarge could use a bath, but there aren’t any corpses.”

Because it was Sarge under the shield, and he was breathing.

#

“Not like we can knock on the front door.”

“Why not?” The Captain asked, with all the righteous fury of—well, of the Captain. Sarge had _fallen off a mountain_ , after all. The Captain squared his shoulders, and his jaw did that jutting thing it did when he got really determined. “I’m not going to stop until every last person in Hydra is dead or captured. _Let’s_ go in the front, it’ll make that easy.”

Several people around the edges of the room traded uncomfortable glances, like they hadn’t come into this meeting expecting to hear Captain America speak bluntly about vengeance with blood in his voice. The Colonel’s jaw actually dropped a little, before he covered his face with one hand.

Falsworth couldn’t say he was surprised, and he didn’t see why anybody else was, either. Least of all the Colonel.

The Captain had been awfully gung-ho taking out Hydra back when it had just been a bit of captivity and a spot of torture they'd inflicted on Sarge. This time they’d cost Sarge his _arm_. 

And they were _surprised_ the Captain wanted to salt the bloody earth, now? Oh, please.

Agent Carter was shaking her head at the Colonel, and the Howlies were all being careful not to look too close at the Captain, Sarge, or each other. _They_ all knew what was what.

“Great,” said Sarge, into the awkward silence, using that cheerful tone he only used when there was no arguing with the Captain so he wasn’t even going to try. “When do we leave?”

The Captain jerked in his seat. He twisted to stare at Sarge. “What?”

“If we’re gonna stop Schmidt’s evil plan, we’ve gotta do it soon, right? Might as well get a move on,” Sarge replied, shrugging. It was rather lopsided. Everyone dropped their eyes to his left shoulder, then tried to pretend they hadn’t—except the Captain, who didn’t take his eyes off Sarge’s face.

“Yes. But. You’re sitting this one out,” the Captain said, face his most mulish.

Sarge gave him a Look. It was the Sarge Isn’t Taking Your Shit Look. Falsworth and the other Howlies were all familiar with it, because they got to see it a lot. Almost as much as the Dumbass Rogers Special.

Sarge had a real gift for Looks.

“No,” he told the Captain, “I ain’t.”

“Buck,” the Captain said, gently, like Sarge might not have noticed. “You just lost your _arm_.”

Several people sucked in sharp breaths. Agent Carter winced. Dugan tried to hunch up small and hide behind Morita. Falsworth himself couldn’t stop his eyes going wide.

Sarge just snorted. “Yeah, and? Lucky for your crazy mug, I’ve got a spare.”

He lifted his right hand and waved it around. The Captain’s face went kinda red. He made a noise Falsworth had last heard from his great-aunt’s cat.

“It’s even my trigger hand,” Sarge said, not nicely, and smiled just as mean. He leaned back a little and, quick as you please, pulled his service pistol from… Well, Falsworth wasn’t actually sure where. He wasn’t going to ask, either, not when Sarge laid the gun on the table in front of him and rested his hand on it.

It probably looked casual—but only to anybody who’d never seen Sarge in action.

“I’m coming,” Sarge said.

“Buck,” the Captain tried to protest, at the same time Agent Carter said, “Sergeant, perhaps—”

“I’m coming, or you’re not going,” Sarge insisted.

The Captain made that stepped-on-cat noise again.

“Hell, I don’t care,” the Colonel broke in. There was a vein throbbing in his forehead. “Let Barnes go along. Heaven knows nothing good happens when Captain Rogers is in the field without him.”

Sarge shot the Captain another Look. This one was Take That, Punk. For reasons passing all understanding, it always made the Captain swell up his shoulders like he was going to really let loose, only to deflate all at once a second later.

Sarge grinned.

“So, great,” he said again. “When do we leave.”

#

“I have to put her in the water,” Rogers’s voice announced over the Hydra radio, casual as you please, like he was at the bar saying he’d decided on beer over wine. Jim just about broke the radio, fumbling so fast to switch it on.

He could hear Barnes in the background, loud and clear, hollering, “Steve, you crazy fucking punk, we are _not_ crashing this goddamn plane!”

“Don’t do it,” Jim added, as he got the microphone going, because was he _serious_?

This was Rogers, so probably.

“There’s no other way,” Rogers said, pretty calmly, and real clear like it was right into the radio.

“The hell there ain’t!” Barnes hollered.

Carter leaned over Jim and took the radio microphone right out of his hand. Jim backed off. She was welcome to it; everybody knew there was only one person who could argue Rogers into or out of anything once his mind was made up, and that guy was on the plane already, yelling his head off instead.

“Steve, can you bail out? I’ll get Howard, we’ll come find—” Carter was saying.

“There’s no time,” Rogers said back. He was starting to not sound so calm, but there was still that steely edge of determination under the freaked out tone, so that was no good, either.

“Yes, there is!” Barnes hollered, edged in panic. “Look, we ain’t hit the water yet, there’s nothing _but_ time!”

“Bucky, dammit, gerroff’a me,” Rogers said, finally muffled.

The sound of a scuffle came over the radio. Jim listened without much hope. Before, he might’ve laid odds on Barnes, because he fought all the time like he was protecting somebody too little to fight and too dumb not to try, and Rogers was always real careful about not using his strength against any of the Howlies—and _also_ , Rogers got weird when he and Barnes wrassled, would try to use moves that’d only work for a real shrimpy fella, which Rogers sure as hell wasn’t.

The missing arm could’ve gone either way, maybe, because looking at it being gone gave Rogers bats in the belfry every single time, which meant maybe he wouldn’t use even as much force as he normally did on Barnes. On the other hand, it was a _missing arm_.

It was pretty clear who the winner’d be.

There was a solid thud from the other side of the radio. Somebody howled.

“Peg,” Rogers said, at the radio again, a little out of breath. “I'm sorry.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Carter said back, all plaintive. There were big wet tears in her eyes, which Jim wasn’t saying anything about because his own weren’t so dry either, and also because she could put him on the ground with one hand without even chipping her nail-polish.

“Stevie, goddamnit,” Barnes yelled again, scared for real, “I don’t want to die.”

“I don’t want you to die either, Bucky,” Rogers said, and he sounded all torn up inside like he really meant it, like this was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. It was pretty alarming, coming from the guy who hadn’t even blinked at anything else Hydra’d thrown at them.

“Then why are you crashing the damn plane!”

“It’s the only thing we can do. These bombs’d kill thousands of people.” A pause, weighty and tense, only Rogers’s heavy breathing to show the line was still active, the plane hadn’t hit yet. “We have to stop them. You _know_ that.”

There was another pause. Then Barnes howled again. “Oh, you dirty rotten skinny—”

They crashed the plane.

* * *

Bucky wakes up in a bed on the other side of a bland room from Steve, who’s pushing himself up to sit on the edge of a matching bed. There’s a radio going—a Dodgers game, it sounds like—and not much else noise, which is weird as hell. Bucky’s arm is still gone.

There isn’t a lot of evidence; the thing could go either way.

He clears his throat, drawing Steve’s eyes, and asks, “Are we dead?”

Steve looks around the room again, his Thinking Serious Thoughts frown on. “I don’t think so. I mean, sure, it might be heaven,” he says, slow. “You’re here, and all.” He squints at the radio. “But I dunno why we’d be listening to _that_ game. We got thrown out for jumping the turnstiles.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “So, we ain’t dead, is what you’re saying.”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve says, turning back to Bucky. The asshole has the nerve to smile at him, all sweet and pleased. “We’re alive.”

“Good,” Bucky says, and launches himself at Steve, fist-first.

“What the—You _jerk_ ,” Steve wails, even while he’s giving back as good as he gets. “What’s that for!”

Except the punk’s still trying to fight like he’s a hundred pounds soaking wet and carrying a suitcase filled with bricks, so it’s only _as good_ as he gets and not the double helping he _should_ be serving up. Which is just fine with Bucky, since it gives him longer to beat the stuffing out of Steve’s stupid head.

“You crashed the damn plane!” Bucky accuses, just as Steve throws them into the wall.

They crash through it like it’s paper, and out the other side. They land on something solid and fleshy that grunts and then goes still.

The room they’d been in has fake-looking blank walls from this side, all propped up by boards, like a movie set. This new room that their old room is inside of is huge.

Like, really huge. It’s bigger than any warehouse Bucky’d ever been in, not even when he’d been working double shifts at the docks trying to keep Steve in colored pencils. The two guys they’d landed on are unconscious, armed, and dressed a lot like Hydra thugs.

Bucky freezes. Half on top of him, Steve does the same. Their eyes meet.

“Let’s get outta here,” Steve says, even as Bucky’s pushing him off and Steve’s dragging him up. Then they’re both sprinting for the nearest door.

There are more people on the other side. A lot more people. Most of them are in suits, but there’re plenty dressed up like Hydra thugs, too. Every single one of them starts getting real excited when they notice Steve and Bucky busting in.

Steve takes a second to take all this in, then turns and keeps sprinting.

“If we don’t die for real,” Bucky says, following Steve down the corridor and glaring at the back of his dumb blond head. He wishes he’d thought to grab one of the guns from those thugs they’d knocked out with their wrestling. “I’m gonna punch you again.”

“Shut up and keep running,” Steve shoots back, like Bucky isn’t doing exactly that.

He’s real, real glad Steve finally figured out how to run away from things. It’d happened right around the time he first saw Bucky getting shot at, and Bucky’s still working on making sure Steve never, _ever_ forgets it.

“Gonna punch you so hard,” Bucky mutters, as they burst through some glass doors and out onto the street. Then he has to stop thinking about punching for a second, pausing next to Steve to gape with him.

How ‘bout that.

Steve’s hand closes around Bucky’s arm. “C’mon,” he says, tugging. Bucky shakes himself and starts running again, but really—how ‘bout that.

Looks like they’d made it to the future, after all.


End file.
